Astria Ascending Review (PS5)

Astria Ascending is one of those special projects, that you have to be in the loop, to even know about its existence. If you are a hardcore JRPG fan you have been looking forward to it, since you first heard about it the first time. You didn’t need to know any more details than the fact that it is developed by people who also worked on Final Fantasy, aiming to bring back the classical experience. You will not be discouraged by the fact that it failed as a mobile title, but the time of waking up has come.

Astria Ascending is finally here, taking the shape of a fully-fledged PC and console game, enriching the indie game scene. Although looking gorgeous and emanating high production value, the game was not released by some big publisher. It is actually the love child of Kazushige Nojima, best known for his work on the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts franchises.

As such we expected a rich story and an even more vibrant world, with memorable and perhaps even bizarre inhabitants. From the moment you step into the world of Orcanon, you will be blown away by the creativity, if not the originality of the game. The five races coexisting under the rule of Harmony are watched over by the goddess Yuno. The regions and their inhabitants are as different and varied as they come, and they need the protection of the demi-gods to keep up the peace and make sure the bad guys known as noises are kept at bay.

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You will take control of the 333rd team of demi-gods, who will face the biggest challenge of the last 1000 years. Moreover, they need to face when they have only a couple of months left to live without having precedents or guidance to rely upon. This is the twist that gives a sense of urgency to the entire story: all demi-gods who are called to serve the Harmony are given great powers, but their life span is reduced to only 3 years. As such, the band of misfits of 4 humans and 4 nonhumans have just three months to set things right.

After a slow, but not unpleasant build-up you will be confronted by different subjects targeting rather the mature audience, and not the younglings. If the visual style with exaggerated anatomy did not already convince you about this aspect the quests touching on racism, losing of a child or the limits of freedom in society will. The intention was good, but the execution is lacking because in the end we do not get more than stereotypes failing to even scratch the surface of the issues. Instead of giving food for thought, Astria Ascending glides over the secondary quests failing to confer them real meaning.

Unfortunately, the same can be said about the main story as well. After a grandiose build up and around 20 hours of gameplay, you will get somewhat annoyed by doing the same things over and over again. Going from temple to temple, and defeating the bosses that once beaten, you will be able to summon, turns into a routine and fails to deliver the motivation to push you forward. There is some backtracking thanks to system that unlocks new abilities to help you explore the locations the further you advance in the story.

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Despite all the efforts of the producers, Astria Ascending seems a copy paste job: they copied the first part of the game and pasted it over and over again, changing the scene, but not the action. The platforming does not offer any real challenge, so its inclusion in the 2D exploration does not really add anything to the recipe. The puzzles are straightforward, and the battles are as hard as you make them. Depending on the settings you chose, the confrontations will vary from a joke to painstakingly frustration inducing struggle.

Next to its story and visuals, the combat and evolution system represent one of the main pillars on which Astria Ascending was built. It follows closely the recipe of the classic JRPGs, giving you 8 heroes, from which only 4 can be present simultaneously on the battlefield. You can change the party any time you want, even during combat, and you will have to do it often, since some monsters are immune to physical or magical damage. Th character evolution is not a complicated, but an overly complicated system with our demi-gods having a basic class, that will grant them also a main job and up to two secondary jobs.

Despite the system that lets you personalize your experience to an incredible level, choosing specializations and abilities leading to very interesting and exciting combinations, the battles themselves are not that fun. On lower difficulty settings the abilities do not play such an important role, while on the higher ones, the conflicts turn into an endless chore. Since there is no option to make the animation speeds faster, on the highest difficulty level some boss confrontations can take over 15 minutes.          

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The only aspect that could break the monotony are the shoot’em’up scenes taking place on the back of Fedorah, the mount that allows our heroes to fly among regions. Too bad, that the experience is ruined by the fact that the game engine was conceived for these kinds of activities. It does a better job handling the token based minigame, that is an interesting take on the collectible card game formula. You can ignore this optional part of the game, but it is a big part of the experience, since almost any character you meet, you can challenge to a J-Stars match.

The visuals are perhaps the best part of Astria Ascending. With the hand drawn characters and surroundings, you will get the feeling that you are exploring the interiors of a living and breathing art book. The attention to detail is amazing, although not every piece of equipment will change the look of the heroes and the inventory system is not the friendliest experience. The visuals go hand in hand with a carefully curated soundtrack with a number of memorable tunes. Unfortunately, in the later part, the sound effects tend to be desynchronized with the visual effects.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion